Posted on 12/22/2014 2:09:07 PM PST by NYer
Each year it is customary for the Roman Pontiff to meet and greet members of the Roman Curia just before Christmas. The Pope gives an address. Often that address is a kind of “State of the Union”, describing things that occurred and prospect for the future. In 2005 Benedict XVI famously used the occasion to deliver one of the most important addresses of many modern pontificates. He spoke of the proper interpretive principles to apply to the Second Vatican Council.
Today Pope Francis also addressed the Curia. I just finished watching the video. It seemed to me, frankly, to be more like a Lenten retreat delivered to Jesuit novices than a Christmas greeting to seasoned churchman, his closest collaborators in his Petrine Ministry.
Francis went through a long list of sins during his prolonged examination of their consciences for them.
The list of the Curia’s spiritual sins? Here they are, as compressed by AP:
Pope Francis listed 15 “ailments” of the Vatican Curia during his annual Christmas greetings to the cardinals, bishops, and priests who run the central administration of the 1.2-billion strong Catholic Church. Here’s the list.
1) Feeling immortal, immune or indispensable. “A Curia that doesn’t criticize itself, that doesn’t update itself, that doesn’t seek to improve itself is a sick body.”
2) Working too hard. “Rest for those who have done their work is necessary, good and should be taken seriously.”
3) Becoming spiritually and mentally hardened. “It’s dangerous to lose that human sensibility that lets you cry with those who are crying, and celebrate those who are joyful.”
4) Planning too much. “Preparing things well is necessary, but don’t fall into the temptation of trying to close or direct the freedom of the Holy Spirit, which is bigger and more generous than any human plan.”
5) Working without coordination, like an orchestra that produces noise. “When the foot tells the hand, ‘I don’t need you’ or the hand tells the head, ‘I’m in charge.’”
6) Having ‘spiritual Alzheimer’s.’ “We see it in the people who have forgotten their encounter with the Lord … in those who depend completely on their here and now, on their passions, whims and manias, in those who build walls around themselves and become enslaved to the idols that they have built with their own hands.”
7) Being rivals or boastful. “When one’s appearance, the color of one’s vestments or honorific titles become the primary objective of life.”
8) Suffering from ‘existential schizophrenia.’ “It’s the sickness of those who live a double life, fruit of hypocrisy that is typical of mediocre and progressive spiritual emptiness that academic degrees cannot fill. It’s a sickness that often affects those who, abandoning pastoral service, limit themselves to bureaucratic work, losing contact with reality and concrete people.”
9) Committing the ‘terrorism of gossip.’ “It’s the sickness of cowardly people who, not having the courage to speak directly, talk behind people’s backs.”
10) Glorifying one’s bosses. “It’s the sickness of those who court their superiors, hoping for their benevolence. They are victims of careerism and opportunism, they honor people who aren’t God.”
11) Being indifferent to others. “When, out of jealousy or cunning, one finds joy in seeing another fall rather than helping him up and encouraging him.”
12) Having a ‘funereal face.’ “In reality, theatrical severity and sterile pessimism are often symptoms of fear and insecurity. The apostle must be polite, serene, enthusiastic and happy and transmit joy wherever he goes.”
13) Wanting more. “When the apostle tries to fill an existential emptiness in his heart by accumulating material goods, not because he needs them but because he’ll feel more secure.”
14) Forming ‘closed circles’ that seek to be stronger than the whole. “This sickness always starts with good intentions but as time goes by, it enslaves its members by becoming a cancer that threatens the harmony of the body and causes so much bad — scandals — especially to our younger brothers.”
15) Seeking worldly profit and showing off. “It’s the sickness of those who insatiably try to multiply their powers and to do so are capable of calumny, defamation and discrediting others, even in newspapers and magazines, naturally to show themselves as being more capable than others.”
Sort of, “Merry Christmas, you vain, hypocritical, funeral faces!”
Mind you, these are just the bullet points. Every point was explained, with citations, in the address of over 3100 words, which took about 32 minutes. There are 20 footnotes. HERE
The Holy Father then went around the room to greet all the Cardinals present.
Veteran Vatican watcher John Allen reported:
“I have to say, I didn’t feel great walking out of that room today,” one senior Vatican official said, who had been in the Vatican’s Sala Clementina for the speech and who spoke on the condition he not be identified.
“I understand that the pope wants us to live up to our ideals, but you wonder sometimes if he has anything positive to say about us at all,” the official said, who’s been in Vatican service for more than two decades.
For the record, this was an official who describes himself as an “enthusiast” over the direction being set by Pope Francis.
The body language on Monday among the cardinals and archbishops who make up the Vatican’s power structure suggest that reaction wasn’t isolated. There were few smiles as the pope spoke and only mild applause; since Francis delivered the address in Italian, it wasn’t because his audience didn’t understand.
Having watched the video, I too thought that the reception of the speech and, afterward, of the Pope himself as he went around the room, was muted and even tense.
One can only guess what fruits this examination of conscience will produce. Time will tell.
On the other hand, Pope Francis also met with the workers and collaborators of the Vatican City State and addressed them. HERE The meeting was held in the Paul VI audience hall. It had a decidedly different feeling, although he told them that he had just addressed the heads of the curial offices. He told all the workers to look at that text, to examine their consciences and to GO TO CONFESSION.
Francis used again the image of the Curia as a body that needs care, indeed, which is sick and needs remedies. He then gave them, too, a list of 10 things that he wanted them all to “take care of… curare”. Some of them were basic, and common sense items that lay people need to attend to. It was the sort of thing that one might hope to hear in a parish pulpit.
Then, at the end, he said (to the workers, not the curial heads):
Non voglio finire queste parole di augurio senza chiedervi perdono per le mancanze, mie e dei collaboratori, e anche per alcuni scandali, che fanno tanto male. Perdonatemi.
I don’t want to conclude these words of greeting without asking pardon of you for shortcomings, mine and those of my collaborators, and also for some scandals, which do great harm. Forgive me.
This was the pope's speech to the curia - it was SUPPOSED to be about him.
And I can't think of anything more full of the Christmas spirit than bitch-slapping arrogant church officers who have forgotten the reason for the season.
Not bad until the last three.
You got it — although I disapprove of your language on the religion forum.
Pope Francis to Curia: Merry Christmas, you power-hungry hypocrites
Floggings will continue until morale improves.
Humble servants to Whom? God or a pope who is doing his best to sanction adultery?
Pope Francis is demeaning those who work in the Curia, the same way Mayor DeBlasio humiliates the New York police officers. Ideologically they are birds of a feathers
4/08/2012 - Father Dariusz Oko completed a report he was commissioned to do by Polish bishops of the Roman Catholic Church. It was entitled, “With the Pope Against the Homoheresy.” F. Oko was, born in 1960 in Oswiecim, Poland, ordained into the Roman Catholic Church in 1985, and is currently a priest in the Archdiocese of Krakow where he is an Assistant Professor at Pontifical University John Paul II in Krakow. The report was 1st published in the German journal “Theologisches” on 9/10/2012. It was later translated into English and spread through the English speaking nations in FEB 2013. Excerpts are presented below …
“For several weeks now Poland has witnessed a heated discussion on the “huge homosexual underground in the Church”, provoked by the most recent book by Fr. Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski entitled “Chodzi mi tylko o prawdę” (Truth Is All That Matters). Some deny any such underground exists, and put forward theses profoundly inconsistent with the teaching of the Church, both being at odds with truth. The problem is serious to the extent I feel I must join in the discussion as well, because I also care about truth, and first of all about good, the fundamental well- being of man and of the Church – the basic community in which he lives. …
Not everyone wants to accept the above rules [of Benedict XVI]. There is resistance to what is taught by the Pope. The homosexual community in the Church defends itself and is on the attack. It also needs an intellectual tool, a justification, and that is why homoideology takes in their minds, words and writings the form of homoheresy.
The most open revolt against the Pope and the Church is headed by some Jesuits in the United States, who openly oppose them and announce that despite the above decisions, they will keep admitting homosexually-oriented seminarians, who are, indeed, especially welcome. They have a long tradition in that vein, for years being the mainstay of homoideology and homoheresy.
They take many views of the heretical moral theologian, ex-priest Charles Curran, for their own. They are also under the overwhelming influence of their former fellow friar, F. John McNeill SJ, who founded the pro-homosexual movement called Dignity, and published a book entitled The Church and the Homosexual, where he explicitly rejects the teaching of the Church and adopts homoideology.
The book was given an imprimatur by his provincial from New York, and has been republished several times despite being banned by the Vatican. This way, it has become a homosexual bible for many American Jesuits. McNeill seems to mean more for them than Jesus or Saint Paul, much less the Pope. The Theological Studies and America papers they publish still uphold and promote pro-homosexual ideas. Consequently, it is estimated they have achieved the highest saturation with homosexuals, way above 30 %. Gays feel more comfortable with them than ever, while other priests find the specific atmosphere less and less bearable.
It appears as though the Jesuits have replaced their traditional, fourth vow of obedience to the Pope with a fourth vow of arch-disobedience. We should not be particularly surprised or shocked, though, knowing that the clergy is submitted to all influences of their times, including the worst ones. If they are intellectually or morally weak, they are not only subject, but succumb to them.
That is one of the basic sources of heresy in the Church, which has already seen so many of them that needed to be exposed and overcome so many times. In the age of fascist ideologies and Marxism, we also had fascist priests and Marxist priests in the Church. Now that the extreme leftists promote homoideology in turn, we naturally have homoideologist, and sometimes even homoheretic priests in the Church. …
We must clearly, explicitly and reservedly say: yes there is a strong homosexual underground in the Church … such Circles in the Church strongly oppose the truth, morality and Revelation, cooperate with enemies of the Church, [and] incite revolt against Peter our our times. …
It is for [his] (the Pope) accuracy of opinion that he is so vehemently opposed, or even hated by some in the Church, especially by members of the homolobby which represents the very center of internal opposition against the Pope. …
If homolobbyists are allowed to act freely, (in Poland) in a dozen or so years they may destroy entire congregations and dioceses – like in the USA, where priestly vocation is more and more now called a gay profession. …
The global network of the homolobbies and homomafias must be counterbalanced by a network of honest people. An excellent tool that can be used here is the Internet, which makes it possible to create a global community of people concerned about the fate of the Church, who have resolved to oppose homoideology and homoheresy. The more we know, the more we can do.”
YouTube - The New Pope & Homoheresy
video run time = 00:10:12 minutes
+1
You’re confusing evangelism and political meddling. In Francis’ actions I see lots of the latter, and zero of the former.
Thank GOD this tool wasn’t in office during the cold war.
You did not read my comment. I referred specifically to the Pope’s overt and aggressive attempt to save the Castro criminal regime from its self inflicted demise. Ministering to the people of Cuba is best done by intense opposition to the murderers who hold them in slavery. That, the pope has not done. He has instead encouraged Obama to support the Castro brothers in their efforts to hold onto their power. Legitimizing the Castro regime is not evangelizing the Cuban people.
“Humble servants to Whom? God or a pope who is doing his best to sanction adultery?”
Both - in all ways that are not sinful. Hasn’t that always been the standard for any disciple of Christ and His Church?
Actually, he is poised right now, through his position, rhetoric, and actions, to be the world's best candidate.
IMHO my words fit the Pope's actual point in this particular religious situation perfectly. In fact, I think most of the Curia was enraged by how he spoke to them, and that that was his intent.
“I have to say, I didn’t feel great walking out of that room today,” one senior Vatican official said, who had been in the Vatican’s Sala Clementina for the speech and who spoke on the condition he not be identified.
“I understand that the pope wants us to live up to our ideals, but you wonder sometimes if he has anything positive to say about us at all,” the official said, who’s been in Vatican service for more than two decades.
The body language on Monday among the cardinals and archbishops who make up the Vatican’s power structure suggest that reaction wasn’t isolated. There were few smiles as the pope spoke and only mild applause; since Francis delivered the address in Italian, it wasn’t because his audience didn’t understand.
He’s sure full of surprises. : ) : (
As an outsider looking in, I am not quite sure what to make of Francis. Personally, I think such challenging words are appropriate, and I think, in my humble estimation, that he echoes Christ in that regard.
But, I also wonder if he isn’t going to go soft on marriage, and his views concerning salvation are universalist. He is definitely an enigma.
Missed that? You can read all about it here. (LINK)
Pope Francis told Archbishop Demetrio Hernandez of Cordoba, Spain that there would be, and could be, no change in the Church's doctrine that a person validly married cannot marry again while their spouse is still living. Missed that? Read it here (LINK)
Cardinal Raymond Burke himself, Lion of Orthodoxy, said Pope Francis does not favor changing this in theory or in practice.(LINK here).
FReepers who stick to the facts and are careful to document them are always appreciated.
And that is a good thing. For me, the best sermons are the one's I walk out of feeling convicted. As if the Pastor was speaking directly to me. It always stimulates me to working on the issues raised and to start living a more Christian life. The flesh has a way of blinding us to serious sin in our lives.
Found this reply on Father Z’s blog:
You better not plan,
You better not frown,
You better not cut some Cardinal down,
Pope Francis is coming to town.
Prometheans and Pelagians too,
all the bad kids are getting their due,
Pope Francis is coming to town.
He hears you spreading gossip,
he knows when you’re on break,
he doesn’t like that cappa,
take it off for goodness sake!
Oh, you better not gripe,
you better not moan,
he’s calling at random – stay by your phone,
Pope Francis is coming to town!
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